San Diego’s First Tourist Comes Down From His Pedestal

It was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo on the line.

The Portuguese explorer calls occasionally to see what’s up.

As you know, he was San Diego’s first tourist: he sailed uninvited into San Diego Bay in 1542 as part of his California vacation.

He named the harbor San Miguel. Nothing’s been the same since.

The day after Cabrillo landed, the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau was founded. Also, a slow-growth movement formed.

Now Cabrillo is a statue at the Cabrillo National Monument at the tip of Point Loma, visited by 1.5 million people last year. He’s got a swell view of the bay and skyline.

He likes federal Civil Service work: good hours, good benefits, leisurely pace.

Juan: Hello, At Large?

Me: Juan, is that you?

Juan: Of course it’s me. How many other statues call you? Bet you never hear from that lummox riding the horse in Balboa Park, El Cid.

Me: Sounds like you’re still peeved about that other Iberian, Sebastian Vizcaino, who arrived in 1602 and replaced the name San Miguel with San Diego de Alcala.

Juan: I forgot that centuries ago. If you people prefer being named after a saint from Madrid rather than a beer from Manila, I can’t help you.

Me: So what’s on your mind?

Juan: I hear my friend John Duffy is retiring.

Me: You knew John Duffy?

Juan: He was sheriff the day I landed. I didn’t meet him exactly. He was off traveling or consulting or something.

Me: Duffy’s leaving, all right. He’s not bitter or angry, though. He’s so unbitter and unangry that he spent a half hour on television telling everybody how unbitter and unangry he is.

Juan: Enough about Duffy, let’s get on to more important stuff. How’s the real estate market?

Me: The market is great. All that talk about a slump is just lies made up by newspapers.

Juan: Who told you that?

Me: My real estate agent.

Juan: Where was he? Showing a home in Mission Hills?

Me: No, selling shoes at Target.

Juan: Did you know I almost moved to North County when I first arrived?

Me: Really?

Juan: Yeah, but I felt the neighbors didn’t want me.

Me: Why?

Juan: You forget. I was an illegal alien.

Me: For a guy who’s been dead for 400 years, you’re pretty flip.

Juan: This is America’s Funniest City, isn’t it?

Me: That’s America’s Finest City.

Juan: I think Funniest is more accurate.

How else do you explain that the Chargers hired two ex-cops to make sure their players go to bed on time? Do they read them Dr. Seuss stories and tuck them in? What if the players have bad dreams in the middle of the night?

Me: You’re pretty opinionated for a limestone statue.

Juan: That’s what happens when you put someone on a pedestal. Just look at Ted Leitner.

Me: I’ve got to go now. El Cid’s on the other line.

Betting on the Red

San Diego calling.

* Perestroika meets royal flush.

Crescent Design, a San Diego software and engineering design firm, has converted video poker machines into the Cyrillic language.

They’re for a Las Vegas firm that is putting the machines into Russian resorts on the Black Sea.

* The Soho Tea & Coffee house in Hillcrest, which canceled a punk rock reading after a bomb threat, still plans a mass reading by San Diegan Steve Kowit and other peace poets on Dec. 30.

* San Diego State will offer a General Studies course next semester on “Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Past, Present and Future.”

In a cultural and political context.

* The Police Department has ended its probe of three sergeants for allegedly filching a few bucks from the coffee fund. No proof, no punishment.

* A team of golfers at the Rancho Bernardo Inn tried to set a Guinness Book record for the fastest 18 holes of night golf.

Lighted golf balls. Golfers everywhere, the closest to the ball takes a whack.

The time: 24 minutes, 8 seconds. The score: 200 strokes or so.